Win 7 Install without USB, DVD, only CD-ROM available

[cpalmer2k]

I've run into a sticky situation with an old Dell Dimension 4600. I'm trying to install Windows 7 with a fresh hard drive. This system only has a CD-ROM drive however, no DVD drive. It has the latest dell bios version which supposedly supports USB booting, but I've tried everything and it refuses to boot from a USB stick or USB dvd drive. I actually tried swapping the CD-ROM out for a DVD-ROM I had laying around as well, but the bios wouldn't recognize it either...

Anyone have any ideas on how to get Windows 7 onto this booger?

 

[Tech in SC]

Put the hard drive in another machine and start the install. When the install needs to reboot, shut it down, place the drive back in the Dell and fire her up & let the install complete.

Disclaimer - I haven't done this with Win7 but I've done this several times with versions of Win9x/Me. Its worth a shot.

 

[compnet]

A better question is why are you continuing?

Sounds like bad motherboard, on a computer that probably isn't worth the 7 key even if the mobo was good.

Edit; Didn't even read the new hard drive part, seriously, they could buy a brand new comp at this point

 

[cyabro]

WDS server setup and boot from the LAN

But seriously as Tech in SC said, put the HDD in your test machine or something and install Win7 from there and put the drive back into the original machine and it should work.

 

[OzzyGeek]

The latest bios version A12.

1. Fixed Quick Boot menu when no bootable drives are selected in SETUP.
2. Updated microcode for newer CPUs.
3. Eliminated possible hang on next boot when AC power is removed.
4. Fixed intermittent hang in resuming from Standby.
5. Improved keyboard test when booting from Hibernate.
6. Fixed possible hang after unplugging and re-plugging USB hubs.
7. Increased USB keyboard wait time to allow all USB devices being enumerated.
8. Added to support in PXE boot environments with Spanning Tree enabled. 9. Prevent false MCE errors from causing "bad CPU" error in POST.
10. Fixed floppy access failures when CD floppy emulation is turned off.

It doesn't mention anything about booting from USB devices.

I am a bit surprised that you are trying to put Windows 7 on a computer that is Nine years old. I think you would be better serving the customer by encouraging them to upgrade to a new entry level computer, if they baulk at they baulk at that option, offer to migrate their data to the new computer at a discounted rate. I can only see problems with trying to load on this computer, especially with driver support and a bios that does not support Windows 7.

 

[cypress]

I am just curious but did you at least run the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor to make sure this computer could properly handle Windows 7?

I agree that a computer this old should either just have Windows XP installed and should consider getting a new computer with Windows 7 already pre-installed.

 

[strollin]

I had an old machine (Dell 4100, 1Ghz P3, 512M RAM) that I installed Win 7 on just-to-see-if-I-could-do-it. I could not get it to boot a Win 7 install disk. It would boot a Vista or XP install disk but no go with the (known good) Win 7 disk.

I ended up putting the hdd in another machine and installing Win 7 there. Afterwards I used the command "sysprep /generalize" to remove all the machine specific stuff. I then installed the hdd back in the original machine and Win 7 installed the required drivers for the machine on first boot.

The machine was no speed demon but it ran Win 7 fine.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

If you wanted the punishment of installing Win7 on that old hulk.....I'd wager a BIOS flash would fix the issue of it not recognizing your newer optical drive.

 

[strollin]

You might just lose that wager. On the machine I worked on, even with the latest BIOS and a DVD drive, the machine would not boot from a DVD Win 7 install disk but it would boot fine from a DVD Vista install disk.